Hours, location & parking
Opening hours, directions, parking and delivery areas, answered instantly, including Ramadan and holiday hours once you update them.
Home / Restaurant WhatsApp Automation
Restaurants & Cafés · UAE
Restaurant WhatsApp automation: reservations and orders without leaving the pass
During service nobody has time for WhatsApp. We set it up to answer hours, menu and table requests from your own information, and pass orders and allergies to your team.
Short answer
Restaurant WhatsApp automation answers your guests during the rush: opening hours, location, parking, menu, prices and what's vegetarian, from your own menu. It takes table reservations with party size and time, collects pickup or delivery orders for your team to confirm, and hands serious allergy questions, complaints and events to a person. We set it up with OrcaFlo (from $14.99 a month + 2¢ per message, 14-day free trial).
The problem
Why the restaurant WhatsApp goes unanswered
A restaurant's WhatsApp is busiest exactly when the team is busiest. At 7:45 PM someone asks if you have a table for four at 8, someone else wants to know if the biryani is spicy, and a regular wants to order pickup. The host is seating guests and the manager is on the floor. By the time anyone looks, the table request is an hour old and the guest has gone elsewhere.
The questions themselves are simple and repetitive: are you open, where are you, is there parking, do you have vegan options, can I book the terrace. They don't need a person; they need an accurate answer from your menu and your hours. A person is needed for a smaller set of moments, and the system should know which ones.
What we automate
Restaurant workflows we set up
Menu questions
Dishes, prices and what's vegetarian, vegan or contains nuts, answered from the menu you give it, never invented.
Table reservations
Takes party size, date, time and seating preference, confirms the booking and sends a reminder before it.
Pickup & delivery orders
Collects the order, name, address or pickup time, and passes it to your team to confirm.
Deposits for big bookings
Shares your payment link for larger bookings and hands them to the manager to confirm.
Events & private dining
Event and large-group enquiries collected and handed to your manager with the details already written down.
What it looks like
A reservation with an allergy
Hi, table for 4 tonight around 8?
Hi! I can do a table for 4 at 8:00 pm or 8:30 pm tonight. Indoor or terrace?
Terrace at 8. Do you have vegan dishes?
Booked ✅ Terrace for 4 at 8:00 pm tonight. Yes, the vegan dishes are marked on the menu. Any allergies I should pass to the team?
One of us has a nut allergy
Thanks for telling us. I've passed it to the manager, who will confirm with the kitchen before you arrive.
The allergy is the line that matters. The assistant answers from the menu information you give it, but you tell it which questions must always go to a person, and serious allergies are the obvious one. It hands the chat over with an alert, and your manager replies from the shared inbox.
Orders
Direct orders on WhatsApp, alongside delivery apps
WhatsApp automation doesn't replace delivery apps. It handles the guests who message you directly, often your regulars, who'd rather order from you than through a platform. A typical direct-order flow:
- The guest asks for the menu or names what they want; the assistant answers prices and options from your menu.
- It collects the items, any notes, the name, and either a pickup time or a delivery address in your delivery area.
- The order goes to your team to confirm, with a push alert, so the kitchen decides timing, not the bot.
- If you take card payments by link, it can share your payment link; otherwise the order is marked for payment on pickup or delivery.
Around that, we can build Custom Automation for the back of house: orders written into a Google Sheet for the kitchen, a daily summary of direct orders, or a feedback message the morning after a reservation.
Bringing guests back
Regulars, quiet nights and seasonal menus
Every guest who messages you becomes a contact you can reach again. With paced broadcasts you can announce a new menu, an Iftar or Suhoor set, a brunch, or a quiet-night offer to your list, without blasting it from a phone. On the official API, these marketing messages use Meta-approved templates. Timed follow-ups can go to guests who asked about an event or a large booking and didn't confirm, and they stop as soon as the guest replies.
When the menu or hours change, you edit them in the dashboard and the assistant answers from the new version. Guests can also send a voice note, which is transcribed, and the same assistant can answer your Instagram DMs (see Instagram DM automation).
OrcaFlo connects to the WhatsApp Business number you already use, in one of two ways. Meta's official WhatsApp Business API gives you the verified route; Meta bills its own per-message fees to your account, and messages sent more than 24 hours after a customer's last message need a Meta-approved template. A QR link to the WhatsApp Business app is quicker to set up and has no Meta fees, but it carries no green tick and some ban risk, because WhatsApp doesn't officially allow unofficial apps. We'll recommend one on the call. OrcaFlo's price is the same on both.
OrcaFlo's page for restaurants and cafés covers the product side in more detail.
Pricing
What restaurant automation costs
OrcaFlo is $14.99 a month (Starter) or $100 a month (Done-for-you, where we load your menu, hours and hand-over rules and keep them tuned), plus 2¢ per message. 14-day free trial, first 500 messages free, no setup fee, cancel any time. A payment processing fee is shown on each invoice, and Meta's fees on the official API are separate. For example, 1,200 messages in a month is $14.99 + $24 = $38.99 on Starter. See pricing.
FAQ
Common questions
Does it replace delivery apps?
No. It handles guests who message you directly on WhatsApp, often your regulars, and passes their orders to your team to confirm.
How does it handle allergy questions?
It answers from the menu information you give it, and you choose which questions always go to a person. Serious allergies are handed to your manager with an alert.
Can it take table reservations?
Yes. It takes party size, date, time and seating preference, confirms the booking and sends a reminder.
Can it take deposits for large bookings?
It can share your payment link and hand larger bookings to your manager to confirm.
What happens when the menu or hours change?
Edit them in the dashboard and it answers from the updated version. For Ramadan or holiday hours, update them before the date.
Does it reply in Arabic?
Yes. It replies in Gulf Arabic or English, in whichever language the guest writes.
Talk to Nuevo Automations
Stop missing table requests during service
Twenty minutes, free. We'll look at what guests ask on WhatsApp and show you what we'd automate first.
Talk to Us on WhatsAppPrefer a set time? Book a free 20-min call · Arabic & English